


Cullen: Through the Ages

by Kauri



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Loss of Virginity, canonical level of violence, minor smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 22:04:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14318100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kauri/pseuds/Kauri
Summary: Outside the Chantry are a trio of Templars, dressed in gold and crimson, their armor polished to a blinding shine. They look just like heros ought. Strong, and glorious, and good. And while it’s true that he hasn’t seen much to compare beyond farmers, and merchants, and once, a courier from the King –– the Templars look as though they’ve stepped out of the pages of one of Mia’s books.Heroic.--A character study of Cullen Rutherford though the various stages of his life.





	Cullen: Through the Ages

**Author's Note:**

> From a tumblr ask from @aphorora, who was interested my headcanon on Cullen losing his virginity. I was 100% certain I wasn't going to write a fic about it, and yet here we are.

**He’s twelve.**

And completely thunderstruck.

Outside the Chantry are a trio of Templars, dressed in gold and crimson, their armor polished to a blinding shine. They look just like heros ought. Strong, and glorious, and _good._ And while it’s true that he hasn’t seen much to compare beyond farmers, and merchants, and once, a courier from the King –– the Templars look as though they’ve stepped out of the pages of one of Mia’s books.

_Heroic._

One of the Templars is the tallest, most straight-backed man Cullen’s ever seen. His hair is black, and his eyes are blue, and Cullen wants immediately to be like him. His companions call him Ser Ardeshir, and he lets Cullen hold his sword. It's so heavy he needs to use a two handed grip. The other Templars laugh, but not Ser Ardeshir. He corrects Cullen’s form, and tells him to practice, and say a prayer to Andraste, and when he ruffles Cullen’s hair as he goes, Cullen thinks he will die if he does not go too.

He tells his father, who buys him a wooden practice sword, and his mother, who makes him a shield from an old barrel-lid –– it's too small, and the wrong shape, but heavy enough –– and he takes them both to the sloping bit of field behind the barn, and swings them around until his arms ache, and blisters rise on his palms. Then he switches hands, and does it all again.

He hardly sets the sword down. Mia teases him –– but when does she _not?_ –– and Branson cries because he wants a sword too, and Rosalie tries to take a bite out of it, and even though the pommel has _tooth marks_ now, he doesn't get too mad and her, because she’s just a baby and still teething.

But he practices and prays, and practices and prays. And in the summer, when the Templars return, he wants to show Ser Ardeshir how good he's getting, but they refuse to spar with him.

 _A sword is not a toy,_ they say. But Ser Ardeshir’s eyes are kind when he says it.

So Cullen sets his jaw, and won't take no for an answer. _Of course._ (He has his mother’s stubbornness, and his father’s temperament, which mostly means he can hold a glower for a powerfully long time without being distracted.) And by the third day, the Templars give in.

They give him a sword, a practice sword with blunted edges, but one made of steel. It feels real enough in his hands. It _sounds_ real too –– a tremendous _clang_ that jangles up the bones of his arm the first time he makes impact. The Templar he’s sparring with snickers, and feints, hoping to draw him off balance, but Cullen is not so easily fooled, and manages to dodge twice, and land three more glancing blows before the Templar gets a bit serious. Then he shows Cullen, in the span of a few heartbeats, that he is just a boy who plays with a stick, and has not quite half the reach of a man full grown, and only a quarter of the sense.

The Templar raps him across the back of his hand for showing off. There’s this wet sort of popping sound, and the flash of pain makes Cullen nearly sick to his stomach. One of his knees buckles out from under him, he can feel the press of tiny stones beneath the thin material of his breeches. He says something filthy that his mother would strongly disapprove of, as the sword drops from his useless fingers.

 _“Yield.”_ The Templar demands.

“No.” Cullen shakes his head, and ignores the tears on his cheeks, bad hand tucked protectively beneath his armpit. _Shit. Fuck. Fucking shit shit shit._ Just his luck.

He picks up the sword with his left hand, because no, no, no, that was _terrible,_ and they’ll never, _ever_ let him be a Templar if he can’t hold his own with a sword. And _that_ hurts worse than whatever’s wrong with his hand.

He takes an awkward, left-handed swing with the sword, but it goes wide, the Templar before him side-stepping easily. So he takes another, and another, and another. Each one fails to land, but it takes a moment before he realizes that the other Templars are closing in around him. He shifts his stance and slashes out suddenly behind him. The other Templar turns the blow easily with his shield, but instead of attacking Cullen back, he looks to Ser Ardeshir, brow raised.

“Right you are.” Ser Ardeshir nods. _“Hold.”_

Ser Ardeshir has vials of blue and red strapped to his hips, and the one he gives Cullen looks ominously like blood, but he drinks what’s offered, and the pain in his hand dims to little more than a buzzing irritation. Cullen nods his thanks, swiping the tears unobtrusively off of his bright red cheeks, and Ser Ardeshir escorts him home.

The walk is short, but he’s miserable enough that he barely notices. He’s never going to be a Templar. He’ll stay in Honnleath forever, and never touch a sword again. Father will be furious that he bothered the Templars, and Mother will fret over him getting hurt. But when he opens the door to his home, Ser Ardeshir sets his hand on his shoulder, so he looks up, and misses entirely the looks on his parent’s faces when the Knight-Lieutenant says:

“The Order seeks permission to train your son, as a Templar Recruit.”

 

***

 

**He’s sixteen.**

Barely. He’s outgrown his robes –– again –– the seams strain across his shoulders, and there’s about four inches of bare, hairy ankles that poke out from the bottom of the hem. It’s hardly worth the bother of visiting the requisition officer for a new set –– the man seems to feels that Cullen’s latest growth spurt exists solely to vex him.

He thinks he’s taller now than his father ever was, though he can’t be sure. But the dark prickle of hair sprouting across chin and cheeks, is a promise that he may yet grow taller still.

The armor he trains in fits well enough, though it’s the lower quality set for recruits, made of steel, not silverite, and dented in places, with runnels of rust in the seams. If he squints at the reflection he sees in the glass, he looks almost –– _almost_ –– like a real Templar. Cullen likes the way he looks in his armor, but he doesn’t like the way he _moves_ in it. Not yet. The armor’s heavy, and drags on his sword arm. It feels too much like fighting underwater with a handful of lead. But he trains an extra two hours a day, every day, to make up for it, and is already the best of all the recruits with a shield.

He’s cocky. _Maker save him,_ but he is. And he can't help it. He loves this life, the straight-backed discipline, and heady sense of purpose. Loves the Order –– though he’s not yet been allowed to take his formal vows. But he practices and prays, and practices and prays, and when they move him into the dormitory with all the senior recruits, it's the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

The food is better, and the robes cover his ankles, and the girls aren't girls, they’re all older, and woman-shaped. And the way they smell makes his balls ache sometimes.

(He keeps thinking he’ll outgrow the blushes, but it never happens. So he takes every guard shift that’s outdoors, and doesn’t wear a helm, and hopes he’ll be lucky enough that everyone will just think he’s sunburnt. But he’s never very lucky.)

One day after practice, Cullen kisses one of the senior recruits. _Lydia,_ born somewhere in the North, with pretty, dark hair, and pretty, dark eyes, and an accent that's hard to place. She tastes of bread and lyrium when she slides her tongue against his, and Maker _that’s_ the best thing that has ever happened to him.

Until she puts her mouth on his cock for the first time.

A week later she takes him to bed. And well, not _bed,_ but a barrel and a broom closet, and a sweaty quarter-of-an-hour, but _oh Maker._ Her arse is warm and broad beneath his hands, and he spills into the cradle of her hips before he can remember not to. But she doesn't seem to mind, just smiles broadly, and kisses him on the flush of his cheeks. He walks out with a _swagger_ in his step, and doesn't stop smiling for an entire week.

It becomes a habit after that.

And none of it makes him any _less_ cocky, that's for certain.

When it’s summer, they take their vows together, with a handful of other recruits. Cullen promises himself to the Order. Promises to stand before the corrupt, and the wicked, and not falter. Promises a whole mess of things that he’s been studying and memorizing for _years._ Obedience to the Chantry. Brotherhood to the Order. His sword arm to the Maker, and his shield arm to His bride. And when his Knight-Commander presents Cullen with his sword –– his _real_ sword, engraved, and enchanted, and lighter than air –– the tears in his eyes are so thick, it’s difficult to see, because it is, every bit of it, _everything_ he’s ever wanted.

The ceremony takes place in the chantry at the center of town. It had always seemed small to him, too much like the chantry in Honnleath, and too little like one he’d always imagined the Templars would keep. But on this night, with every pew light with candles, and the soft voices of the other recruits, the other Templars –– Blessed Andraste, _they_ are Templars now –– rising and falling in the careful cadence of prayer, it seems… _immeasurable._ Like the night sky. Like faith.

Like _love._

And he must be in love with Lydia, because you’re always a little in love with your first, aren't you?

She’s not the only one he thinks of, but she's his first –– and his second, and his third –– and he imagines all the ways their lives could fit together until he gets his posting at Lake Calenhad, and she’s off to the Free Marches, and he ought to be sadder, but if he’s being honest, he’s mostly just horny.

But he’s  broad-shouldered, and taller than his father ever was, so he doesn't stay horny for very long.

 

***

 

**He’s eighteen.**

The Templar sigil is stamped on his breast. That glorious armor, all gold and crimson, is so heavily polished, the shine of it is nearly blinding. It’s _his_ now, all of it –– the armor, and the purpose –– and he wears it all with a fierce sense of pride. It’s heavy, and familiar, and _good._ The weight of it feels like a _foundation._ Some sturdy center he can build himself around. Brick by brick. Stone by stone. Until he stands tall, and straight-backed.

No longer a boy, but a _man._ An officer. A Knight-Lieutenant.

The title is still bigger than he is, the syllables strange in his mouth. And though he was hailed as one of the Order’s most promising recruits, the Calenhad Circle is different enough to be disorienting. He’d practiced, and practised, and practiced, and practiced, and yet everything is still so damn _new._

His first taste of lyrium –– like licking the sky, little pinpricks of magic all across his tongue. His first harrowing –– gripping his sword, a prayer on his lips, watching the red grains of sand count a mage’s life away. His first –– well… _her._

_Solona Amell._

He isn’t sure of what to do about her. Like a spot on his record. A stain on his armor. A light in his heart.

What he knows of love he learned from the stories in Mia’s books. And being near Solona feels a bit like that. He forgets himself, forgets how to _breathe,_ but it isn't love, because it _can't_ be love. It can’t –– even _he_ is not unlucky enough ––

 _Maker have mercy,_ he _cannot_ be in love with a mage.

But…

She is small, and sweet, and has dimples tucked into the corners of her smile. Her magic is green, and smells of summer when it swells in her hands. And she’s smart, Maker is she _smart._ He finds himself snorting in his corner when she turns her attention to the First Enchanter and harangs the poor man with question after question about everything under the sun.

 _If you put enough magic in the sky, could you turn it purple?_ _Could a fire-mage survive if they swallowed a fireball? Would nugs still be nugs if they were big enough to ride?_

Yes. No. And Maker’s breath, why would you _want_ to?

Cullen’s not supposed to laugh, so instead bites the inside of his cheek until it’s raw, and wonders how something so lovely was able to flourish inside these stone walls.

And he catches himself smiling back at her when he shouldn’t, which is always, because he _can’t._

 _Can't. Can’t. Can't._ He reminds himself whenever he sees her.

 _Can't._ When his fingers tangle with her own.

 _Can't._ When she rises up on her toes, and their lips touch, and his heart nearly beats itself out of his chest.

_Can’t._

But he does anyway, Maker forgive him.

Perhaps he's not a very good Templar after all.

 

***

 

**He’s twenty-four.**

And though he no longer believes in silly things like love, or luck, or second chances, he knows very well that’s what this is.

A second chance.

A second circle.

 _Kirkwall._ A hard place, all steel and stone, but he wears it like armor over the brittle places in his heart. And remakes himself into the man he was always meant to be. A _true_ Templar. A Knight-Captain.

 _Meredith’s Fist._ It’s what they call him now when his back is turned. His lips curl with pleasure whenever he hears the monniker. It is far better than the things they used to whisper of him. _Coward. Demon touched. Ruined. Poor boy._

_Hero._

The memories are like swallowing broken glass. He bleeds in places no one can see. And if the wounds fester and rot… well... no one can see that either. He must appear strong and unshakeable, even when he is not.

He dreams of Kinloch. Of the filth, and the finality of a demon’s embrace. Of sweating through lyrium withdrawal, and relentless terror, and hopelessness. Of the unforgivable weakness of praying to the Maker to keep him safe, for _another_ Templar –– any other but him –– to be taken, wrung dry, discarded.

In the end, the blood mages never came for him, and the corpses of his brothers and sisters piled up around him, rent and rotting.

If the Maker had answered his prayers, He’d also cursed Cullen for his cowardice.

In Greenfell, they took his sword and his shield, left him defenceless, _purposeless,_ then abandoned him to the absolute silence of that place. Most of the lay brothers at Greenfell had taken sacred vows to only utter words from the chant. Even then, they rarely spoke save in the hushed voice of prayer. All it did was make the roar of guilt and regret inside him rise, deafening, until he screamed, and screamed, and screamed just to hear something beyond his own thoughts.

_Coward._

_Demon-Touched._

_Ruined._

_Poor boy._

They’d sent him to Greenfell, to heal, they said, but Cullen had never shaken the belief that it was as punishment for not being strong enough. For being too weak to die. For _surviving._

For _bearing witness_ to the Order’s shame.

It was Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard who had offered him forgiveness, and lifted him up from the suffocating silence of the Order’s censure. _She_ had pressed a blade into his hand, and bid him stand at her side, and be useful again, and he _loved_ her for it.

He loves her still. Her commitment to the Order, and her pragmatism. Meredith is everything Cullen wishes he could be. She is hard, and righteous, and _unflinching_ in her duty. And above all things, a very, very _good_ Templar.

For the first time in a long, long time, Cullen feels safe again.

As her Knight-Captain, he trusts her explicitly. As her _fist_ he neither trembles, nor falters, nor shrinks from wielding the brand. And he wields it often. For Knight-Commander Meredith understands the inherent evil of mages –– as all Templars are taught, but so few _know._

_Blessed are they who stand before_

_The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter._

_Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just._

_Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow._

_In their blood the Maker’s will is written._

He _knows._

He will not forget.

 

***

 

**He’s twenty-nine.**

And he cannot remember when his life wasn’t a disaster. But he thinks it might have been long, long before he ever swallowed lyrium, or held a sword, or set eyes on that Marker-damned sigil of the Templars.

He wonders what might have been if it had been a trio of Wardens up on that hill, that morning by the chantry in Honnleath. Wonders what his _life_ would have been, if he’d given his oath and arm to a different, less complicated cause. To be down in the deep roads where there is no sun, and no rain, and no rest, isn’t a life anyone dreams of –– but when you thrust your sword through a darkspawn, at least you know it’s an enemy you’ve killed. And Cullen would sell his soul for that certainty now.

(Or better still, if that hill had just been grass, and flowers, and fat-bodied bees. Then perhaps he would have never dreamed of a soldier’s glory, and his hands would have grown knowing only the shape of a plough, and an axe, and the cheesemaker’s daughter.)

But there were _Templars_ on that hill.

And now the Gallows are on fire. Half of Kirkwall is on fire. And what isn’t burning, is drenched in ash and blood.

_Ruined._

Blessed Andraste, there is _so much blood._ There are _puddles_ of it everywhere, pooling between the stones of the Gallows courtyard, dripping down the walls, and a long red streak across the floor where something –– _someone_ –– has been dragged away. Yet for all the blood that’s been spilt, there’s even _more_ magic.

His Templar powers –– that _awareness_ of magic that’s usually just a dull roar inside him, is _shrieking._ Even so, he downs another vial of lyrium, needing every ounce of his own strength to stand firm. Electric blue starlight sinks into his skin and settles around his bones, until he can almost _taste_ the magic with his teeth, and Maker, it’s _everywhere._ Threaded through the walls of the circle, lingering in the air, flowing through the corridors. A river. A tide. The mages themselves are like _hurricanes,_ pulling at every nerve in his body, until it _hurts_ not to unleash his powers. So he throws a thunderous smite at the first knot of blood mages they encounter. One dissolves into a demon even as it falls, and breaks open against the courtyard flags. Cullen’s caught in the fresh spray of red.

_Demon touched._

That’s when Knight-Commander calls for annulment –– the death of every mage within the Gallows, no matter their age, or innocence. The Circle has officially fallen. He had thought –– hoped, prayed –– that Meredith would finally been willing to temper her wrath –– but no. _No._

Maker –– _Maker, please no._

As the cry for annulment is taken up, the violence in the courtyard increases tenfold.  

Magic. Blood. Death. Abomination.

These are the sum of Cullen’s life.

_Poor boy._

At the center of it all is the so-called-Champion. _Hawke._ The apostate Meredith failed to collar. Cullen has never known what to make of him. Like Meredith, he is hard –– brutal even –– and unflinching in his beliefs. They are both of them, fanatics. But where Meredith is cruel, Hawke is cunning. Where Meredith is ridgid, Hawke bends like a willow branch.

Knight-Commander Meredith is _everything_ the Chantry could ask of a Templar, and yet the halls of the Gallows run red and ruined. Garrett Hawke, is everything Cullen has been taught to fear: an apostate, only one step removed from an unholy abomination. And yet...

Hawke’s hands are filled with blue light, and he stands where the chaos is thickest, shouting, staff little more than a whirling blur. Around Hawke the killing is indiscriminate, and endless. Templars. Mages. Grotesque remnants of what were once men. Clerics and Mothers who stagger from the rubble of the chantry. Civilians, caught up in the fury. Children.

_Maker, the children._

And Hawke, who has killed a dragon –– single-handedly, if the rumors are true –– doesn't attack, he _helps._ From his hands bloom barriers, faint, blue shimmers in the air. He casts them around his companions, around the wounded, around the innocents, even around Cullen’s own men. His magic pours out, and pours out, and pours out. A balm, where Meredith only seeks to carve her own madness into the face of the world.

And she _is_ mad.

He should have seen it.

Maker have mercy, he _had_ seen it.

_Coward._

And he thinks if he had been better Templar –– or a _worse_ one –– Kirkwall might have been saved.

Cullen promised to remember. And though he’s forgotten what an enemy looks like, he hasn’t forgotten the scent of corruption, or the frenzied taint of madness. The bright red glow of Meredith’s sword, and Meredith’s eyes, and Meredith’s fury, is so very _familiar._ Wicked. Corrupt.

And this time, Cullen does not falter.

He stands with Hawke, because the Order was never meant to be _this ––_ a nightmare as desperate as Uldred’s cage, forged from Templar steel, fed by Templar bloodlust.  And he feels something fundamental inside him fracture –– he knows what it is to break down to his core, but this, this is a rending of principals.

_Hero._

The fight against Meredith puts every story in Mia’s book to shame. Cullen falls in line beside Hawke who fights as though it is all he has ever known. As if every breath in his body has lead him to this moment. And when Meredith harness the dark magic within her sword and rallies the very statues of the Gallows against them –– it is not even the most unbelievable event of the day. _That_ is when Meredith’s rage finally consumes her utterly, and her skin sloughs away to reveal the red lyrium demon within.

Hawke wears her down, but Cullen strikes the killing blow. It is fitting, somehow. An act of contrition.

And just like that, the battle is won, and he is acting Knight-Commander of Kirkwall.

Hawke tries to wipe Meredith’s blood from his face, but mostly manages to _smear_ it. The Champion is his own brand of horrifying. He arches a thick, dark brow at Cullen, lips pulled into something of a smirk.  “Your orders, Ser?”

And Cullen, in his first act as Knight-Commander, takes a half-step away from Hawke, and empties his stomach onto the stones of the Gallows courtyard.

 

***

 

**He’s thirty-two.**

The scars on his body are a map of his failures, and there are too many to count. And really, what is one more?

So when he hands in his sword, and his shield, and his armor, and breaks every vow he once thought unbreakable, he isn’t surprised when the Orders takes the only thing left that matters to him.

The lyrium.

The first week beyond the Gallow walls is… difficult. But he’s got practically his entire earnings from a lifetime spent in the Order, and, thanks to Meredith’s paranoia, a better understanding than most of the workings of the Dwarven Merchant’s Guild. It it not smuggling –– technically –– but the shame of it still burns straight through him when he’s sober enough to notice, so he tries very hard not to be.

And today is no different. Cullen’s sitting in the corner of a tavern whose name he can’t remember. A place which manages to smell incessantly of cooking grease and vomit, but the drink is cheap –– thankfully the lyrium has long since scoured the subtly from his taste buds –– and the location is so far into lowtown, that he’s unlikely to be recognized.

So he isn’t prepared when he is greeted by his name, and former title.

“Knight-Captain Cullen.”

He looks up, blearily with shock. A Templar… no, a _Seeker._ A tall woman, with short, dark hair, severe features, and such an air of _authority_ that Cullen nearly stands and salutes. He doesn't, but it’s a close thing. Instead he sets his jaw, thinking of how little there is left of him that the Order –– what’s left of it –– could possibly want. 

“I am Cassandra Pentaghast of the Seekers of Truth, Hero of Orlais, and Right Hand of the Divine.”

At the end of it all, Cullen still has his mother’s stubbornness, and his father’s temperament, and he can still hold a glower for a powerfully long time. So he does. “Wonderful.”

This Cassandra gives him back an equally long-winded scowl, and they sit for some time in silence, glaring at each other. Or rather, he sits, and she stands over him menacingly. After a while, Cullen decides to ignore her, and goes back to drinking, after all the taste of the stuff is not markedly improved by going flat.

He is halfway through his glass when she makes a disapproving sound, and slides into the chair beside him.

“Knight-Captain Cullen Stanton Rutherford,” She begins, formally enough that Cullen’s focuses on her instantly, even as he tries not to show it. “I have a writ from Divine Justinia, to establish an Inquisition and restore order to Thedas. I ask that you join our cause, and lead our military forces as Commander of the Inquisition.”

He bites back an automatic, horrified _why,_ but the look on his face must be question enough.

“The Templars hail you as a hero, as do the mages of Kirkwall.”

“Hardly.” Cullen grinds his teeth together. Of all the things he’s been called, _Hero_ has always hurt the most. “A pity you cannot ask the ones who are _dead.”_ He taps himself on the chest, glaring. _“Meredith's fist,_ remember?”

She arches a thin, dark brow at him, inconvenience. “Yet you stopped her.”

“Reluctantly. And at the last possible moment.”

“Sometimes, what we do at the end, is more important than what we do at the beginning.” She levels him with a look that is… difficult to read. “The Inquisition is charged with bringing an end to this war.”

Cullen takes a deep breath, chest tight, and sketches a vague salute with his glass. “Good luck with that.” He says gruffly. The barkeep, mistaking the gesture, sends a serving girl to top off his drink. As the sour smelling foam drips over his fingers, Cassandra looks at him expectantly. “I’m not certain I care,” he elaborates.

“You lie as poorly as you smell.” She straightens further in her chair, which is impressive, considering how straight-backed she already sits. “Knight-Captain Cullen, will you accept the position as it is offered, and join the Inquisition?”

And he opens his mouth to tell her that the Chantry, and the Order can both go to the bloody-void, but what comes out is –– “I’ll do it.”

Cullen knows. But it’s quite possible he never learns.

And it’s possible he’s never stopped believing in second chances.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been interested in the intersection between Cullen's own rigidity, and the idea of what it means to be a "good" Templar. Is a good Templar one who obeys his commander, and follows orders? Or is a good Templar one who stands up for the weak and the abused? I don't think Cullen's ever been able to answer that one, but he'll settle for being able to look at himself in the eye at the end of the day.
> 
> \--
> 
> Special thanks to @cedarmoons for betaing. Though I ended up rewriting most of the story after I had her edit it, so the parts that are good are probably her doing, and the parts that are not as good... well... I'm cool blaming her for that too. :) <3 <3


End file.
